to wash away
by anachronist-mirror
Summary: [AU, x-posted from AO3, unrequited Bya/Harry] A prince, a prisoner, and a talk by the sea. (Freedom had a high cost when one sought to claim it for another.)


It was a fine summer day, the heavy saltwater air coating his tongue as they walked, close enough for their hands to almost bump tgether, along the peaceful shore some distance from Byakuran's handlers, when the pale-haired man spoke.

"You're leaving soon." He was still smiling, shielding his eyes as he turned from his companion to the horizon. There was little to see beyond the waves glittering in the sunlight, a desert with rolling dunes of water. Byakuran, in his white asylum-issued clothes, looked as if he'd drown in the morning sun. "And you're not going to be able to come back."

Harry froze, stomach twisting. This wasn't a conversation he was ready for, nor was it the one he expected to have when Byakuran invited him this morning with the excuse of finding seashells. The man, after all, took every chance he got to stretch his legs and walk farther than he could compared to the confines of his cell. Harry always agreed to join him, holding Byakuran's grin of pure delight close to his heart every time.

"Yeah," Harry replied stiffly when, rubbing the back of his neck and grazing the strap of his aged visitor's ID. It wasn't as if he wanted this to end, Just Harry and Just Byakuran spending time together like there was no tomorrow. "But how -"

"'Seven years, seven months, seven days.'" A quote from more than half a decade ago, smoother than when Harry himself explained the conditions of his own stay, bitter at his own helplessness and inability to do more than stick around and try for a better solution. Byakuran deserved more than confinement in this miserable corner of the continent. He could do so much _more._ When Harry didn't speak up, Byakuran continued. "I'm surprised you finished the contract, actually, after your godfather's announcement in the royal court. Surely our dearest prince has other affairs to attend to instead of figuring out how to bail out a prisoner in his lonesome, especially one who was an infamous terrorist."

"_Ex-_rebel," was Harry's automatic correction with a weak glare, a pang lancing through him as it did whenever the other spoke of himself that way. Looking angry was better being openly uncertain, especially if Byakuran was still probing for answers on why he continued this nigh impossible crusade. For ten years, Harry had kept his secret, unwilling to burden the other and lose a friend. He wasn't about to slip now, and Byakuran had never shown a sign that he'd be interested. "You were being used."

"Semantics," Byakuran easily retorted, pulling away and stretching his arms over his head. He wasn't entirely innocent, and he knew it. "I told you to give up already. Nothing you say will change my mind. Or _theirs._"

Unfortunately, that was true. In spite of Byakuran's lawyer's claim during the post-reclamation re-trial that the then-teen had been brainwashed, no one who knew of his intelligence believed it. Though from a family of minor importance, the heir of the Gesso was too brilliant in the businesses of war and machinery, taking advantage of Voldemort's coup in the capital by expanding his own territory at the skirts of the empire. When the ursuper commissioned a battalion of Mosca to guard the palace, it was all too easy for most to believe they had been allies since the beginning.

Harry thought otherwise. _Lived_ otherwise. Always had, since Byakuran had hidden him in Gesso territory since the revolt and burned all evidence of it before being brought to Voldemort's court for questioning. He had gone alone, not that Harry knew who else his increasingly secretive friend had been working with in running the Gesso, supposedly for his own safety.

No proof of deliberate Mosca tampering or conspiracy against the usurper's empire. The same details that saved Byakuran from execution now kept him locked up after the Order's reclaiming of the capital.

Harry clenched his hands, knuckles whitening from the strain. "I'll -"

"No royal pardons for me, thanks." Byakuran's mocking reply cut through the sound of waves. "Freedom out there is no different from here, except for a change of view. I'll still be banned from tinkering, or writing, or talking to anyone I want to, or even heading out without a human shadow."

"You're just bitter there's nothing for you to do in peacetime," Harry said mullishly. Even he, after spending hours just admiring the other when no one was looking, wasn't blind to how Byakuran went from disinterested to fully engaged when Trouble came, and to the bloodthirsty edge his actions took. "But there is! I just need to convince -"

"Nope!" Byakuran hummed, kicking sand to the water. "Crouch Jr. already made a good example of why "exemplary behavior" can't be trusted, and Rokudo's glued to the untouchable Vongola next door, not that he seems to mind. Now, what makes you think your council will bend over when the incumbent king has to prove he's no longer a reckless youth chasing wraiths at the borders?"

Harry winced at the reminder. In his defense, there was more to that story. Unfortunately, it all had to be kept under wraps for fear of causing more panic.

"I -" He paused. Exhaled. Fine, this was a good time as any to rehearse his lines for Sirius, Kingsley, and Moody. _Especially_ Moody, who'd take this as Harry failing to be vigilant and trying to replace him for handling military affairs and information. Mostly the former. "I need a good advisor?"

"Oh?" Byakuran raised an eyebrow, smirking. "Pull the other one."

Harry scowled and made to sit down. Yelped, jumped, hurriedly took a dried out coral out from under his bum, and pointedly ignored the berk laughing next to him. The waves lapping his bare feet did nothing to soothe his irritation."I'm serious!"

"You're overstaffed." Byakuran plopped down next to him, swiping away the offending coral, and it was kind of unfair that he himself didn't encounter any shells. "And most of them think they know how to what to do already. No, I'd say you have your hands full."

"And that's exactly why I need someone like you there," Harry muttered grumpily, scooping up sand and letting the grains fall from the funnel of his hand. It was more than that, even if Byakuran's assessment of his soon to be advisers was correct, but he wasn't about to tell. "You're going to miss me once I'm gone, you jerk."

His brain caught up on what he said, and he abruptly bit the inside of his cheek, heart thudding in his chest. _Idiot._ Foot, meet mouth. This was what he got by being too caught up in worrying. Hopefully, Byakuran would take it as a joke or something.

To his immediate relief and continued suffering, Byakuran proved him right by cooing.

"So adorable, Ha-chan." Byakuran, asshole that he was, dumped sand over his head. Would've shoved Harry in the water too, except his minders were always twitchy. "Don't forget to write! If you're the sender, it might even get to me after only a month."

Unlike whatever other mail a supposed ex-terrorist might actually get these days.

Harry made a frustrated sound and splashed Byakuran with a little more force than necessary. Didn't the sputtering idiot next to him want to be free?

"This isn't over," he promised, bringing up his knees and glaring at the sea. "I'll still come back."

"It is and you won't," Byakuran said, reaching over to splash a drizzle of water, enough to force Harry to wipe his glasses, and messed up his hair. "You're wasting your time, Ha-chan. I'll be fine."

The fingers in his hair now worked to dust away the sand and massage his scalp. Deflating, Harry slumped at Byakuran's side, resting his head on the other's shoulder and wishing he could place the other's free arm around his waist. This close, he could smell not only salt water, but fragrant pine and hearth.

Maybe Harry should've paid attention more that morning, or stayed longer. He could've made that day in a high note, blanketing himself in the warm smiles he knew Byakuran could give. Perhaps he should've owed up to his secret, why he refused to give up after all this time, or made sure to visit even if he was dead tired from hunting whatever terrors and thieves lurked at the borders, sneaking in sweets and books and news from the outside in spite of the asylum's rules. Maybe then, Byakuran would've agreed, and Harry could've stolen him away, consequences be damned.

Before he could officially complete his term as the island's warden, the Asylum went down in flames.

An unattended has lamp, the volunteers from the village surmised as they treated the wounded and carried out the dead.

Byakuran's body was never recovered.

Harry's heart shattered into a hundred million pieces, and he shut himself away to grieve for lost love.

000

The parade preceding the coronation ceremony was well underway. From a distance, the incumbent king was solemn, his expression more suited for a funeral for all the splendour and finery he was dressed in.

The trappings of power came at a price.

"Hey." Bluebell swung her mechanical legs from her seat on the balcony next to him. "You're really okay with this, Ghost?"

Ghost, for that was his name with this group, hummed and popped a marshmallow in his mouth. It was a more fitting name now that Byakuran was officially dead.

"Things are better this way," he said.

Bluebell puffed her cheek and crossed her arms. "I'm not talking about things, dummy! I'm asking _you._"

His gaze sharpened. "Are you questioning my orders, Bluebell?"

She shrunk back before remembering herself and gripping her smooth metal knees. "O-of course not! But you like him, don't you?"

Did he? That was a question he never looked closely into. Not since he discovered Harry's lineage during their shared apprenticeship before Voldemort's reign. It would never have worked out.

Not with how things currently were anyway, with too many eyes on the crown, heaps of expectations and obligations on the monarch, and pointless posturing in court. He was going to change that soon enough. This time, he doubted Harry would be so forgiving if he ever found out, never mind that Harry could spead his wings far more than if he remained trapped in that position.

Yes. Byakuran's death was all for the best. No hard feelings, maybe.

"Who knows," he replied instead, losing interest in both the conversation and the parade. "We're leaving."

"Aww!" In spite of her protest, Bluebell immediately followed, the hinges of her joints easily taking her weight. "But the fun's just getting started!"

"There will be a lot more," Byakuran promised as he turned to carefully pull her hood up before doing the same to his own. He might not have been around for a while and his hair was longer, but that didn't necessarily mean he was unrecognizable. "This isn't over."

He let her latch on to an arm as he pocketed his hands. In one was a tiny piece of bleached coral. It was the remaining witness of a conversation from one summer morning, long after the tide of the sea had swept everything away.


End file.
